The Detention Center
Travis County Jail (Central Booking) and Travis County Correctional Complex
- Operated byTravis County Sheriff's Office, Corrections Bureau
- County publishes a jail nameYes - two named facilities on the Sheriff's Office Facilities page
- Travis County Jail500 W. 10th St., Austin, TX 78701 - the central booking facility
- Travis County Correctional Complex3614 Bill Price Rd., Del Valle, TX 78617
- BondCash, personal and surety bonds; personal bonds carry a $40 or 3% fee to Travis County Pretrial Services within seven days
- Bond posting locationsBlackwell-Thurman Criminal Justice Center bonding office, 509 W. 11th St.; and the Correctional Complex
- Telephone and commissaryViaPath Technologies for calls, Access SecurePak for gift packages - no rates published
- What was triedhttps://www.tcsheriff.org/inmate-jail-info/jail-info/facilities ; /inmate-jail-info/bond-info ; /inmate-jail-info/inmate-info/contact-an-inmate ; /inmate-jail-info/inmate-info/send-money-commissary ; /inmate-jail-info/jail-info/prea ; https://www.traviscountytx.gov/open-records/jail-pop-demographics (404)
- Beds and population, 2026-082,412 people held in 3,535 rated beds
Source: Travis County Sheriff's Office - Facilities · checked 2026-08-22
Transparency rating
6/10Partial- ✓The jail is named
- ✓Who is in custody
- ✗Beds and daily population — not published
- ✓What it costs taxpayers
- ✓Deaths in custody
- ✓PREA audits
- ✗Independent inspection — not published
- ✗Who else it holds, and for how much — not published
- ✓How to post bond
- ✗Phone, video and commissary rates — not published
The Building
You paid for it. Here is what the record says it cost.
- Year builtNot found
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byNot found
- Beds3,535 rated capacity across both facilities (TCJS inmate population report, 1 August 2026)
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Sally Hernandez
- Published as"Sheriff Sally Hernandez"
- First electedNovember 2016, per the county Sheriff's Office biography
- Before this officeTravis County Constable, Precinct 3, elected 2013
- Corrections BureauRuns both jail facilities; general jail line 512-854-4180
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Travis County Sheriff's Office - Sheriff Sally Hernandez · checked 2026-08-22
The Judges
Travis County has five JP precincts, seven criminal county courts at law, nine criminal district courts and a separate District Magistrate Court at the Blackwell-Thurman Criminal Justice Center. Civil district courts (53rd, 98th, 126th, 200th, 201st, 250th, 261st, 345th, 353rd, 419th, 455th, 459th) are listed separately at /courts/civil/district.
County Judge
- Andy Brown
County Courts at Law (civil)
- Todd Wong (County Court at Law 1)
- Eric Shepperd (County Court at Law 2)
County Courts at Law (criminal)
- Bianca Garcia (County Court 3)
- Dimple Malhotra (County Court 4)
- Mary Ann Espiritu (County Court 5)
- Denise Hernandez (County Court 6)
- Elisabeth A. Earle (County Court 7)
- Carlos H. Barrera (County Court 8)
- Kim Williams (County Court 9)
Criminal District Courts
- Cliff Brown (147th)
- Dayna Blazey (167th)
- Karen Sage (299th)
- Chantal Eldridge (331st)
- Julie Kocurek (390th)
- Brandy Mueller (403rd)
- Tamara Needles (427th)
- Brad Urrutia (450th)
- Selena Alvarenga (460th)
Magistrate Court
- Kimberly Donoghue
Justices of the Peace
- Yvonne M. Williams (Pct. 1)
- Randall Slagle (Pct. 2)
- Sylvia Holmes (Pct. 3)
- Raul Arturo Gonzalez (Pct. 4)
- Tanisa Jeffers (Pct. 5)
- The county's bond schedule
- Share of the jail population held pretrial
- Median time from booking to first appearance
Source: the state judiciary · checked 2026-08-22
The County Commissioners
They pay for the jail. The sheriff runs it.
- What they controlThe detention budget, the building itself, and the agreements that let other agencies rent its beds.
- What they don'tDay-to-day operations. The sheriff is separately elected and answers to voters, not to the board.
- The boardBoard of County Commissioners →
- Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →
Notes on the record
- The Sheriff's Office "Population Demographics" navigation link points at https://www.traviscountytx.gov/open-records/jail-pop-demographics, which returns a 404. The alternate path /open-data-portal/jail-pop-demographics also 404s. The only surviving population publication is a Justice Planning forum thread of static Jail Dashboard PDFs whose most recent post is dated 2022 (https://www.traviscountytx.gov/forum/justice-planning/78-travis-county-jail-dashboards). Capacity is therefore marked no.
- PREA final audit reports are published for both facilities: TCSO-Final-Report-May-2026.pdf, plus archived Travis County Jail and Travis County Correctional Complex audit reports under /files/inmate-jail-info/.
- Deaths in custody are published as press releases rather than as a standing register; the 2023 Central Booking death release is also still online under the archives path.
- Adopted budget is published in four volumes plus a Budget in Brief; the Corrections Bureau appears in the detailed expenditure volume.
- No commissary, telephone or video-visit rates are published in dollars - callers are referred to ViaPath and Access SecurePak.
- Four commissioners plus the County Judge, who presides. Precinct 1 Jeff Travillion, Precinct 2 Brigid Shea, Precinct 3 Ann Howard, Precinct 4 George Morales. Court meets Tuesdays at 9:00 a.m.
- County seat: Texas State Library and Archives Commission — Counties and County Seats
The record
36 people have died in the Travis County jail since 2016.
Deaths: Texas Justice Initiative, the cleaned copy of the Texas Attorney General’s custodial death reports — the state’s own public index carries no cause of death and has not been refreshed since August 2025. Population: Texas Commission on Jail Standards monthly report. Counted, not estimated.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Travis County and what it costs the people who live here. Nationally, almost 77% of the people who died in local jails in 2019 had not been convicted of anything, and suicide was the leading single cause of those deaths (Bureau of Justice Statistics, Mortality in Local Jails, 2000–2019).
How much is your sheriff — and your judge — costing you?
Your VOTE is POWERFUL.
The sheriff who runs this jail is elected. So are the commissioners who pay for it.
Names verified 2026-08-22 · dollars and outcomes still being gathered